


Blair Waldorf's Costumes in "The Last Days of Disco Stick"

by merryghoul



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Costumes, Fairy Tale Elements, Mentions of Lady Gaga, Meta, Meta Essay, Movie Reference, Nonfiction, Picspam, Snow White Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:02:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22408390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: A look at Blair’s two outfits in that episode.
Kudos: 1
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Blair Waldorf's Costumes in "The Last Days of Disco Stick"

**Author's Note:**

> This essay/picspam was originally published on Dreamwidth to my journal there on 4 July 2011. It was originally written for Kink Bingo, but I later removed links to it from that community. This essay has been rewritten to remove some of my original extraneous comments and to add some additional observations.
> 
> All Gossip Girl screencaps are my own. 
> 
> The site I took the Funny Face poster shuttered, although this particular poster can be seen on other sites. I took my copy of this poster from a site called mcomet.com.

(Photo description: Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass walking in Central Park.)

In "The Last Days of Disco Stick," Blair Waldorf, who believes she should be at an Ivy League school, feels out of place at New York University. She feels the only way to fit in is to "conquer" the students there. This means "conquering" a stereotypical group of snobby theater people enrolled in the Tisch School of the Arts (NYU’s school for visual art, theater and cinema).

Blair's first outfit in this episode can be seen as [a more expensive homage](https://web.archive.org/web/20110101080057/http://www.gossipgirlfashion.net/Last-Days-Disco-Stick-Blair-5483871) to Audrey Hepburn's all-black outfit in _Funny Face._

(Photo description: One poster for the 1957 movie _Funny Face._ The poster has a mostly pink background. Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire’s names are at the top of this poster, in black lettering. From left to right: Hepburn, dressed in black [throughout] jumping to the right with her left leg extended and a yellow circle behind her; a three-quarter image of Hepburn’s facing left; a large image of Hepburn facing left with her arms extended and her knees bent; a drawing of the Arc de Triomphe; Astaire, mostly in a yellow circle [with part of the large Hepburn image and the drawings] and in a monochromatic pink in a leaping position, moving left; a drawing of the Eiffel Tower; and an image of Hepburn standing with her arms outstretched and her left leg bent with a yellow circle behind her. The movie’s title, in pink and against a white background, is on either side of the large Hepburn picture and stops before the Hepburn with the bent leg. Additional movie information, in pink, is under the title.)

  
I should mention that Blair (both in the _Gossip Girl_ books as well as the series) idolizes Hepburn, so it's not a surprise to see her wearing something Hepburn-esque. Blair adds a neckerchief, red heels, a jacket, a beret and a Chanel bag (that she clings onto, a lot) to her black outfit. Then-boyfriend Chuck Bass, not being cultured enough (and apparently "too busy" to care), probably misses the _Funny Face_ reference.

(Photo description: Picspam of Blair and Chuck walking in Central Park, with captions:

[Top photo] CHUCK: Point ceded. So is beatnik back? [Bottom photo] BLAIR: Ew. No. I'm adding new recruits to my student army.)

Blair also really likes the pin she uses to keep her neckerchief in place. [Here was a link, that is now dead and not on any internet archive, for a pin similar to the one Blair wears here; the link said that said pin was $24 in 2011.]

(Photo description: Blair holding her neckerchief pin in front of Chuck. An on-screen credit for Matthew Settle is over this picture.) 

Blair clings on to the Chanel bag. I'd say it's like an emotional crutch for her. She hangs on to it while being laughed at by the theater people as they are discussing a fairy tale cabaret night.

(Photo description: Blair holding on to her black and white Chanel bag, with a gold link chain, near a group of theater students at a cafe within the vicinity of New York University.)

Blair holds on to the bag as she asks actor and short-term NYU student Olivia Burke to participate in the cabaret.

(Photo description: Blair, with Chanel bag, stopping Olivia Burke in a NYU dormitory hall.)

Blair still has the bag with her as she asks Dan Humphrey to write her retelling of Snow White, but with Lady Gaga songs, for the caberet.

  


(Photo description: Picspam of Blair, Dan, and Olivia in the cafe. Top left and right photos: Blair talks to Dan about the fairy tale caberet, holding her bag. Bottom left: An irritated Dan looking at Blair as Blair leaves his table. Bottom right: Dan with his face in his hands as Olivia is looking at him while Blair heads for the exit of the cafe.)

Blair even gives the Chanel bag a comfy place to rest in as she reads Dan's script.

(Photo description: Blair, in the center with her Chanel bag in her lap, reading Dan’s script for the caberet. Olivia is to her right [viewer’s left] while Dan is standing in front of the cast of the caberet.)

When the direction of Blair's play (directed by her enemy, Vanessa Abrams) goes astray, Blair peeks in, showing off her pin.

(Photo description: Blair peeking her head out of a red curtain.) 

In the episode before "The Last Days of Disco Stick Stick," "They Shoot Humphreys, Don't They?" Dan had a threesome with Vanessa and Olivia. Because of their threesome the two girls vie for Dan's attention while working on the play; as a result, they both quit. Blair has to blackmail them to get them to return to the play, a strange hanging light bulb over the girls as Blair interrogates them. As much as I hate this scene and the circumstances behind it (it feels slut-shamey to me), I do adore Blair rocking in her heels. 

(Photo description: Picspam of Blair, on the left of both photos, rocking back and forth in a chair, interrogating Olivia. Olivia, on the right, is lit with a single light bulb somehow hanging in a dorm room.)

(Photo description: Vanessa, on the left, lit by the same mysterious light bulb in this dorm room as Blair is on the right, interrogating Vanessa.)

Back at the cabaret, Blair takes her time adjusting her queen outfit for the play, which is apparently made out of [an alice + olivia dress](https://web.archive.org/web/2011*/http://www.gossipgirlfashion.net/Last-Days-Disco-Stick-Blair-5995040), a lot of costume pieces (including a piece that looks dog collar-like) and patterned tights.

(Photo description: Picspam of Blair, sitting by three mirrors backstage. She’s adjusting her Evil Queen look in the mirror as she’s talking to Dan, who is standing behind her.)

Here's more pic of Blair in the queen outfit when she forces Vanessa to play Snow White when Olivia bails midway through the play. (Apparently Vanessa ran out of time to find understudies.)

(Photo description: Blair, as the Evil Queen, talking to a Magic Mirror that resembles an encased platinum record. A woman's head is in a hole that represents the record's label.)

(Photo description: Backstage at the caberet: Blair, in her Evil Queen outfit, trying to persuade Vanessa, left, to be Snow White.)

(Photo: Vanessa, on a couch, pretending to be unconscious in the caberet show. Two actors in street clothes—updated versions of the dwarfs—are behind the couch, looking after Snow White. Blair, as the Evil Queen, is on the right, next to her Magic Mirrror. In the foreground is the caberet audience.) 

Blair's musical impresses the theater students she was targeting, as well as a few others. She leads the theater students and her caberet audience to another space. Blair has somehow gotten Lady Gaga to perform "Bad Romance" in this space. Blair's plot for this episode ends here, and so does her reliance on her _Funny Face_ -like outfit and her Chanel bag.

(Photo description: Picspam of Blair after the caberet. Top left: Blair holding her Chanel bag at the cafe, surrounded by audience members. Top right: Blair in the same cafe with bag holding a lit candle. Bottom left: Blair leading the audience members in a hallway to see Lady Gaga. Bottom right: The audience for the Lady Gaga concert; Blair is still holding her candle.)


End file.
